Getting more customers isn't just about casting a wider net. It's about using the right incentives to attract the right people at the right time — without sacrificing your bottom line. If you're a grocery retailer or operate a fuel station or restaurant, you know the challenge: acquisition costs keep climbing, but you still need to fill your empty tables, checkout lanes, and gas pumps.

The good news? You don't need to choose between growth and profitability. Here's how to get more customers while protecting your margins.

Understand who you're really trying to reach

When you're planning your customer acquisition strategy, it helps to understand the different types of customers you're trying to reach. Each group has different needs and responds to different incentives.

New customers need a compelling reason to choose you over a competitor they might already know. Infrequent customers have visited once or twice but haven't formed a habit yet. Both groups are still evaluating their options, which means the right incentive at the right time can influence where they choose to stop, turning first-time visits into repeat business.

The key is recognizing that each customer needs a different approach. A one-size-fits-all promotion might overspend on customers who would have come anyway, while undershooting what it takes to win someone completely new.

Understanding your target customer also means recognizing their shopping behaviors. Modern consumers are uncommitted. They prioritize their own needs over brand loyalty, often shopping at three or more locations per month to find the right value for their money. They're digitally driven, price-conscious, and make decisions on the go. Your business strategy needs to account for these realities.

Meet customers where they make buying decisions

Customers are often deciding where to shop, eat, or refuel less than two hours before they actually do it. That means you have a big opportunity to reach them in the moment, on their phones — right as they're planning their next trip.

Traditional marketing approaches like billboards, radio ads, even some digital advertising miss this critical window. By the time your message reaches someone, they've already made their decision and are halfway to your competitor.

The most effective customer acquisition strategies work like this: reach customers digitally when they're actively deciding where to go, present them with a personalized incentive to choose you, and make it easy for them to act on that decision immediately.

This is fundamentally different from trying to drive traffic through awareness campaigns that happen days or weeks before a purchase decision, because you're influencing behavior at the exact moment it matters.

Build a marketing strategy that balances short-term and long-term growth

Your marketing strategy should include both immediate customer acquisition tactics and longer-term efforts that build awareness over time. Each plays a different role in growing your business:

• Immediate acquisition tactics focus on capturing customers right when they're ready to buy. These include personalized promotions, location-based offers, and partnerships with apps that consumers already use for everyday decisions. The goal is to win transactions today.
• Long-term awareness efforts help ensure that when customers in your area think about your category, they think of you. This might include traditional advertising channels like billboards, radio spots, or local TV commercials that build brand recognition. Community involvement also plays a role. Participating in community events, supporting local causes, or sponsoring neighborhood activities helps establish your business as a trusted part of the neighborhood.
  

It's important not to focus exclusively on one strategy or the other. Long-term brand building may not pay the bills this quarter, but short-term acquisition tactics can become unsustainable if you're constantly fighting to win the same customers over and over.

A balanced approach recognizes that different channels serve different purposes. You might run Google Search ads to capture high-intent searches when someone is actively looking for your category in your area, while simultaneously using display ads to reach customers earlier in their decision-making process, before they've committed to where they'll shop. Neither replaces the other. Rather, they work together to cover different stages of the customer journey.

Consider which digital channels actually drive measurable results

When you're evaluating where to invest your acquisition budget, the question isn't just "which channels reach the most people?" but "which channels drive measurable, incremental profit?"

Many popular digital marketing channels struggle with attribution. Social media channels can build awareness and engagement, but proving that a specific post or ad directly drove an in-store purchase is difficult. You might see your follower count grow without seeing a corresponding increase in transactions.

Similarly, while an influencer marketing campaign might expose your business to thousands of potential customers, connecting that exposure to actual visits requires sophisticated tracking. Even then, you're often left wondering how many of those customers would have found you anyway.

This doesn't mean these channels are worthless. It means you need to be realistic about what you're paying for and what you're getting. If you're investing in channels that can't prove incremental impact, make sure you're treating them as awareness investments, not performance marketing.

The channels that work best for immediate customer acquisition share a few characteristics: they reach your target audience at the moment of decision, they allow for personalization based on individual customer behavior, and they provide clear attribution so you can measure incremental impact.

Use personalization to maximize your marketing efficiency

Blanket promotions face a common challenge: finding the right offer amount that works for everyone. Often, this means either offering more than necessary to customers who would have visited anyway, or not offering enough to motivate genuinely new customers to try your business.

Personalization solves this by tailoring your offer to the individual, offering the exact right promotion it will take to change their behavior. A frequent customer only needs a small incentive to return, while a brand-new customer requires a larger promotion to change their existing habits.

When you personalize your customer acquisition efforts, you're not just being more efficient with your spend. You're fundamentally changing the economics of growth. You can profitably attract customers who would otherwise be too expensive to acquire.

Think of it this way: if you offer everyone 20% off, you're wasting money on customers who would have visited for 5% off, while still missing customers who need 30% off to switch from their current favorite. Personalization finds the exact right value for each customer, maximizing your return on every dollar spent.

Make sure you're only paying for real results

Too many customer acquisition tools charge you for impressions, clicks, or even transactions that would have happened anyway. When you can't prove that a customer visited because of your marketing effort, you're essentially paying for activity instead of impact.

Look for solutions that use a profit-share model instead. With this approach, you only pay when a new customer actually walks through your doors, and only based on the incremental profit they generate. This aligns your partner's success with your own, eliminating the risk of wasted marketing spend.

The difference is attribution. If you can't definitively prove that your marketing drove a specific transaction, you shouldn't pay for it as if it did.

This principle applies whether you're evaluating a marketplace platform, a card-linked offer program, or any other customer acquisition channel. The question to ask is: "Can this channel show me exactly which transactions wouldn't have happened without it?" If the answer is no, you may be taking on unnecessary risk.

Layer strategies for compounding impact

Successful retailers don't rely on just one method for increasing foot traffic and transactions. They layer multiple strategies that work together to create compounding value.

For example, combining a traditional loyalty program with personalized cash-back promotions can reduce first-month churn from 31% to even lower levels. Each strategy reinforces the other:

• Loyalty programs reward repeat visits and build long-term habits with your most frequent customers.
• Cash-back offers provide the immediate value that gets customers through the door in the first place, especially those who are new or infrequent.
• Together, they create multiple touch points that keep your business top-of-mind while delivering tangible value at every stage of the customer relationship.
  

This layered approach also protects you from over-relying on any single tactic. When costs rise on one channel, you have other levers to maintain your growth momentum.

The key is making sure your strategies complement each other rather than competing. If you're running personalized promotions through a marketplace while also sharing the same discount to everyone via social media, you're undermining the personalization and potentially cannibalizing your own margins.

Focus on early engagement to build habits

Getting a new customer through your doors once is just the beginning. The real challenge is getting them to come back before they forget about you and return to their old shopping habits.

Instead of waiting weeks or months to re-engage a new customer, focus on creating reasons for them to return quickly. The faster you can turn a first-time visitor into a repeat customer, the better your long-term retention will be.

This is where having a clear post-acquisition strategy matters. If you're investing to win a new customer but not following up to win their second visit, you may be leaving money on the table. The cost to acquire that customer stays the same, but the lifetime value drops dramatically.

Prove the impact with real data

At the end of the day, the question isn't just "how many customers did we get?" but "how much incremental profit did they generate?"

The only way to answer that question is with rigorous measurement that compares what actually happened against what would have happened without your marketing efforts. This requires:

• Matching each new customer with a control group of similar shoppers who didn't receive your promotion.
• Tracking the difference in their behavior over time to see what's truly incremental.
• Measuring profit, not just activity and focusing on the actual revenue lift rather than clicks, impressions, or other vanity metrics.
  

When you measure your customer acquisition efforts this way, you can confidently invest more in what's working and cut back on what isn't. You're making decisions based on proven incremental impact, not assumptions.

This level of measurement discipline separates retailers who grow profitably from those who grow revenue at the expense of their bottom line. You can acquire all the customers in the world, but if you're not earning more than you're spending to get them, you're not building a sustainable business.

Optimize the complete customer experience

Customer acquisition doesn't stop when someone walks through your doors. The experience they have once they arrive determines whether they become a loyal customer or a one-time visitor.

This means paying attention to every touch point. If you're driving traffic through a digital promotion, make sure your team knows how to process those transactions smoothly. If you're highlighting specific products or menu items in your marketing, make sure they're well-stocked and easy to find.

For businesses with an online presence, your landing page matters too. When customers click through from a promotion or ad, they should immediately see relevant information that reinforces their decision to visit. This might include your locations, hours, current offers, or product descriptions that help them plan their trip.

The retailers who excel at customer acquisition don't just focus on getting people through the door. They think about the entire journey from awareness to repeat visits. Every friction point you eliminate and every moment of delight you create increases the likelihood that a new customer becomes a loyal one.

Make customer acquisition profitable, not just possible

Getting more customers doesn't have to mean accepting razor-thin margins or hoping your marketing investments eventually pay off. With an approach that combines personalization, proven attribution, and a profit-share cost structure, you can drive more foot traffic and new transactions that fall straight to your bottom line.

The retailers who win aren't the ones spending the most on customer acquisition. They're the ones spending smarter, reaching customers when it matters most, and only paying for results they can prove. When you approach customer acquisition with this level of discipline and strategic thinking, growth becomes a predictable, profitable engine for your business.

How Upside helps you get more customers profitably

Upside is a digital marketplace that connects retailers with millions of nearby consumers through personalized cash-back promotions. We reach customers on their phones when they're actively deciding where to shop, eat, or refuel, and we present them with the exact offer they need to choose your business over a competitor.

Our personalized promotions are margin-bound, which means they're tailored to each individual customer while protecting your profitability on every transaction. A frequent customer receives a smaller incentive, while a brand-new customer gets the larger promotion needed to overcome their existing habits. This personalization ensures you're not overpaying to win customers who would have visited anyway.

With Upside's profit-share model, you only pay when we deliver proven incremental profit to your business. Our measurement methodology uses a test-versus-control analysis to show you exactly which transactions we influenced, so you never pay for customers you would have gotten on your own. Upside works alongside your existing loyalty programs and marketing efforts, boosting their performance without claiming credit for what you're already doing.

Retailers on Upside have driven $1.8 billion in new, incremental profit to date. Whether you operate grocery stores, fuel and convenience locations, or restaurants, Upside can help you profitably fill your remaining capacity with new customers and transactions. Request your demo today to get started.

Frequently asked questions

What's the difference between customer acquisition and customer retention?

Customer acquisition focuses on attracting people who have never visited your business or who visit infrequently, while customer retention keeps existing customers coming back. Both are essential for growth, and the most effective strategies address them together by turning first-time visitors into loyal, repeat customers.

How much should I spend on customer acquisition?

You should spend whatever you can while maintaining positive ROI on each new customer. The key is using a profit-share or performance-based model where you only pay when you've earned incremental profit, which eliminates the risk of overspending on acquisition efforts that don't deliver measurable results.

How do I know if my customer acquisition efforts are working?

Measure incremental impact by comparing new customer behavior against a control group of similar shoppers who didn't receive your promotion. If you can't prove that your marketing directly drove a transaction, you shouldn't count it as a win.

What's the best way to attract customers without lowering prices for everyone?

Use personalized promotions that tailor offers to each individual customer's likelihood to visit. This allows you to provide larger incentives to genuinely new customers who need them, while offering smaller promotions to customers who would visit with less motivation, protecting your margins across your entire customer base.